Trade-Offs and Treats

Just a couple of thoughts, even though I'm a bigger person with a different situation and different maintenance strategies:

First, keep an eye on the scale. 7 months is a ways into maintenance, but still pretty new. Some people see a gradual TDEE increase after eating at maintenance for a while, which shows up as ultra-slow loss on the scale, even if the MFP estimate was solid during loss. (Some people are able to push this a little by adding a small number of calories daily, waiting a week or two, adding another small increase, etc.) No guarantees in any of that, but I'm simply encouraging you to be open to the possibility so you don't ignore/discount it if it seems to be happening at some point.

Second, if you haven't already, maybe give some thought to pushing your daily life (non-exercise) activity a bit, creating a bias toward more movement in your routine day. This is not something you can estimate as you do it, and tack onto your calorie goal, but it will show up on the scale gradually. Some people are able to squeeze out as much as a couple of hundred extra calories daily, surprisingly. Again, no promises, just something to consider. This thread has people sharing their ideas for increasing daily life activity:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10610953/neat-improvement-strategies-to-improve-weight-loss/p1

Third, from other threads I think I remember you talking about exercising, but I don't recall whether that includes progressive strength exercise. If it doesn't, that's another possibility for *small*, *gradual* improvements in TDEE. The extra calorie burn of muscle tissue at rest is truly tiny, and it's slow work to increase it, but increased strength can conspire positively in the "bias toward movement in one's day" kind of thing, I suspect, because the stronger/fitter we are, the more easy and pleasant it is to move. Of course strength increase is useful in itself, so it's not a waste even if there's not noticeable calorie-needs increase.

Personally, I have experienced some subtle changes over the course of maintenance (5+ years now). I can't say that that's included less actual juggling, but has included less anxiety over tradeoffs; and feeling more like adjustments are easier and more automatic, vs. being an explicit thought process. I'd say I've felt more intuitive trust for me over time that minor variations aren't going to lead to disaster, as long as I don't go crazy. I also have fewer issues with appetite/serving size wishful thinking now, I believe, but it's pretty subtle. If I had to say, I'd say that appetite changes were quite slow to come along, maybe like year 3-ish for me? I'm sure that's individual, though.

Overall, however, I do know that it helps me that I have a higher TDEE (combination of fairly high exercise + mysteriously high calorie needs to start with), so probably that helps make things less difficult than they are for you with a tighter budget. I'm trying to be very honest/open here about things that I truly think could apply for you, despite differences in our size, base strategies, etc.

Hoping it *does* become easier and less stressful for you!